“Developing
a Character Like Christ's”Part 4:“Connecting to Others throughOur Heavenly Father”Based onJohn
15:9-17Delivered on March 21 & 22, 2009by David J.
ClaassenCopyright
2009 by David J. Claassen

When a tragedy such as 9/11 happens, cell phone circuits
quickly become overloaded.Are people
calling their financial counselors to switch investments?Are they calling a restaurant to cancel their
reservations for the evening?No,
they're calling the people nearest to them: a mate, family members, or a close
friend.When someone is told their job
is being done away with, what's the first thing they do?They call someone near to them.If we've just heard some exciting news, the
first thing we do is call someone or tell them in person.

When life
suddenly takes a major turn — for the worse or for the better — our instinctive
reaction is to connect with someone close to us.Life is best when we have good connections
with people!

We’re
continuing our current six-part weekend series with the general theme of “Developing
a Character Like Christ's”in which, as scholar N.T. Wright put it, we
“dare to impersonate our older brother” — who, of course, is Jesus.Today’s message is part four, in which we're
going to see the importance Jesus put on connecting with others and how as His
followers we should act as He did.

Jesus Was Connected to Others

If you knew nothing
about Jesus other than the fact that He was God on Earth in human form, you
might easily assume that He spent His time here without depending on anyone
because He needed no one.However, we
know a lot more about Jesus than that, and one of the things we know is that He
did depend on other people!

One of
the first things Jesus did when He started His three years of active ministry
was to call twelve men as His disciples.He didn’t do that just so they could learn from Him, though that was a
key element.He also called them to be
with Him for companionship and to help Him carry out His call from the Heavenly
Father.

“When
Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive
out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom
of God and to heal the sick.” (Luke 9:1-2)Later Jesus sent out more of His followers: “After this the Lord appointed
seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and
place where he was about to go.” (Luke 10:1)The group of twelve and the larger group of
seventy-two were chosen to help Jesus carry out His work.

Jesus
felt close to His followers.He said to
the twelve disciples near the end of their three years together, “I have
eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” (Luke
22:15)He wanted this special time with
them.Later He said to them — and you
can hear affection in His words — “You are those who have stood by me in my
trials.” (Luke 22:28)

In
Jesus' greatest time of need — in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest
and execution — He wanted His disciples to be with Him.He took the eleven into the garden (Judas was
away, setting up the betrayal).Leaving
eight of the disciples in one place, he took the other three deeper into the
garden: “He took Peter, James and John along with him and he began to be
deeply distressed and troubled.'My soul
is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,' he said to them.'Stay here and keep watch.'” (Mark
14:33-34)Though Jesus went deeper into
the garden to be alone with His Heavenly Father, He wanted the three disciples
nearby.

It's
apparent that Jesus knew that He was supposed to have the help of others in
carrying out His Father’s will for Him in this world.Human connection was exceedingly important to
Jesus!If Jesus needed human
connections, we certainly do!

Connecting Like Jesus Did

It's important to
remember that Jesus not only called the twelve disciples to follow Him, He
called them to do it together!Jesus told them — and it's recorded for us, too — about a natural
progression of God the Father connecting to Jesus, Jesus connecting to us, and
our connecting to each other: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved
you.Now remain in my love.If you obey my commands, you will remain in
my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. . .
. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. . . . This is my
command: Love each other.” (John 15:9-10,12,17)

Modern
spirituality seems to be largely a solo effort.The prevailing view is that each person's spirituality is no one else's
business: it's a private affair.Jesus
knew nothing of this kind of approach.Jesus' call is for us to follow Him individually — and to do it
together.

This
isn’t necessarily easy, and it wasn't for the original twelve, either!Among the twelve original disciples there
were some very diverse characters!There
was Matthew, the former tax collector for the Romans, and Simon (not Simon
Peter, a different Simon) who had been a zealot, part of a movement to
overthrow the Roman rule!I suspect that
Matthew and Simon had to agree not to discuss politics!The twelve disciples didn’t always get along
in perfect harmony, but they had to get over that!

If we
want to be followers of Jesus, we're stuck hanging around some other followers
of Jesus, like it or not.The fact is
that sometimes we like it — and sometimes not!

Think
of your favorite TV show.Are all the
characters alike?No; in fact the
different characters, some of whom really are “characters” in their own right,
make the show interesting.Any church,
including Mayfair-Plymouth, is made up of all kinds of characters.The problem is that when you're part of a
real-life drama instead of a TV drama, the odd characters aren’t as interesting
as they are annoying!

We not
only have different personalities, we’re different in many other ways.We’re school-aged and retired; we're
Republicans and Democrats.We're of
different national and ethnic backgrounds; we're white-collar and blue-collar.About the only thing we all have in common is
Jesus, and I have a sneaking suspicion that that's the way it's supposed to
be!Author Philip Yancey quoted a pastor
in India, where they have a strong caste system: “Most of what happens in
Christian churches, including even the miracles, can be duplicated in Hindu and
Muslim congregations.But in my area
only Christians strive, however ineptly, to mix men and women of different
castes, races, and social groups.That's
the real miracle.” (Christianity Today magazine, November 2008,
p.119)It's all part of the genius of
Jesus' plan!That's why I like our
church's logo, which we've had for over thirty years: “Finding Friendship
around Christ.”

When we
come together as a group of believers where all we have in common is Jesus, we
reveal Jesus to each other — and to other people, too!Jesus said, “By this all men will know
that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)People will see Jesus best when they see that
we can love and connect to each other because of Him!

In the
village of Whalton in Europe the people did something special at the
celebration of the millennium.Every
household was given a disposable camera to record images of what the village
meant to them.Local artist Ian Johnson
used 2500 of those images to produce a montage image of Christ.Together, all of us here at Mayfair-Plymouth
are supposed to form an image of Christ!

In
practical terms that means that we treat each other with love and respect as we
work together on projects at the church, on ministry teams, or on church
boards.It means that we care for people,
not just for what they can help us with in the church.It means that we don't just hang out with our
little group of friends; we reach out to those we don't know well in the
church, striking up a conversation in the hallway or sitting by them at a
church service or a meal in Friendship Hall.It means that we invite people who don’t have a church home to join
us.If they don't have a church, they
don’t know the all-important role that a church has in helping them to become
the people God wants them to be.According to a survey, 86% of the un-churched feel that they can have a
good relationship with God without belonging to a church.Jesus Christ has a better way!The Bible says, “Let us not give up
meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one
another — . . .” (Hebrews 10:25)Jesus wants everyone to be His followers, but He wants us to do it with
each other!Invite someone to our church
so they can discover what they've been missing!

Connections That Count

Connecting with
other people around Christ in what we call the Mayfair-Plymouth Church is just
one way we're supposed to connect.We're
going to leave this church service and go back to our marriages, families,
friends, neighbors, and co-workers.Jesus has His plans for us to connect in His best way in every
situation!

Jesus
gave us two great commands: “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment.And the second is like it: 'Love your
neighbor as yourself.'” (Matthew 22:37-39)We're supposed to love God and our neighbors.Who are our neighbors?Anyone near us at any time.That means our mates who sleep beside us
every night and live with us, the children we have, the friends we pal around
with, our co-workers, and the people who live next door.

Let's
ask ourselves some questions.This week,
how does Jesus want me to relate to my mate, to my family, and to my
friends?How does He want me to relate
to my co-workers, to casual acquaintances, and to strangers?

Human
connections were of supreme importance to Jesus.Because we seek to be His followers, human
connections should be of supreme importance to us, too!This week let's connect to others as Christ
would have us connect!